By the time the news -- which was buried on a late-night edition of
Fox Sports Live -- broke that Lyoto
Machida would take Belfort’s place at UFC
173 in Las Vegas, most of the MMA community had already called
it.

It began with a comprehensive
ESPN Outside the Lines piece by Mike Fish and Josh Gross that
exposed mixed martial arts for granting an unusually high number of
therapeutic use exemptions for testosterone replacement therapy, as
compared to other major sports. Many members of the MMA media had
begun to question the controversial treatment over the past year,
but when the Worldwide Leader decides to throw around its weight,
people tend to listen more carefully.

It was no coincidence that shortly thereafter the Nevada Athletic
Commission voted unanimously to ban TRT use, or that the UFC
swiftly followed suit for international events under the
promotion’s jurisdiction. Later, the Brazilian commission announced
it would stop issuing TUEs following
UFC Fight Night 39.

“The rules are the rules -- that’s it,” he said on Fox Sports Live.
“Yesterday, it was legal, so quit complaining. Today it’s illegal.
That’s it. Quit complaining. End of conversation. Testosterone’s
out.”

If only that were truly it.

Every high-profile performance-enhancing drug scandal in
professional sports needs a scapegoat, and Belfort is that guy in
MMA. For those wondering why the likes of Sonnen, Frank Mir,
Dan
Henderson or others have not received the scrutiny Belfort has
in recent months, consider this: “The Phenom” was 2013’s most
successful beneficiary by far. At 36 years old, Belfort reinvented
himself as a head-kicking virtuoso with knockouts of Michael
Bisping, Luke
Rockhold and Henderson. He did it all while fighting
exclusively in Brazil and receiving TRT.

In baseball, Barry Bonds was reviled during his joyless march past
Hank Aaron’s home run record but not because of his race, attitude
or any other intangible characteristic. No, Bonds received the
scrutiny he did because he was the highest-profile player in
baseball suspected of using performance-enhancing drugs. When you
have someone on the verge of taking down one of the game’s most
hallowed records, it makes no sense to focus on a minor league
pitcher who suspiciously added 10 miles per hour to his
fastball.

In theory, the toppling of the largest domino will serve to set
everything else in motion. Belfort was one step away from capturing
the UFC middleweight strap and had arguably become the Octagon’s
No. 1 must-see attraction. UFC President Dana White and the company
he represents were more than happy to put the ball in the court of
the various state athletic commissions when it came to regulating
TRT use.

The Belfort-Weidman matchup had the potential to generate a lot of
money for the promotion as part of its traditional Memorial Day
Weekend card. If the Brazilian was artificially enhanced because
the commission failed to take action against TRT, well, that
probably was not going to affect gate or pay-per-view revenue.

While chicks dug the long ball during baseball’s tainted
renaissance, jaw-dropping knockouts never go out of style in MMA.
TRT was a fountain of youth that allowed the UFC to extend the
shelf-life of some of its most marketable stars, and it could do so
while claiming that everything was legal as long as the athletes
stayed within the allowable limits.

Not everyone receiving the treatment was able to operate on the
same lofty plain as Belfort, but who is to say that any of them
would have even remained relevant without TRT?

When the Association of Ringside Physicians
released a statement in late January advocating the “general
elimination” of therapeutic exemptions for TRT, it was a major step
in the right direction. The ESPN piece seemed to accelerate the
process. However, nothing might have happened as quickly had
Belfort not agreed to take a random drug test on Feb. 7.

When Belfort exited the title fight the same day the NAC voted
unanimously to ban TRT, he claimed that he needed time to adjust to
the commission’s new regulations and be able to compete without
TRT. Depending on which prepared statement you believe, he was
either forced out or dropped out the Weidman fight.

Either way, since he had not yet applied for a license to fight on
May 24, the results of that random drug test will not be revealed.
Belfort’s lawyer even went so far as to tell
MMAJunkie.com that said results were “not relevant.”

Now, if someone who had received as much criticism as Belfort had
in recent months had passed a drug test with flying colors, it
would seem that those results would be very relevant. Proving
himself to be clean would raise a big middle finger to anyone who
had doubted him. Instead, Belfort, the UFC and the NAC have
basically gone silent. Suddenly the promotion and the commission’s
decision to ban TRT seems like a smoke screen, a collaborative
public relations move meant to distract the masses.

If you believe banning TRT cleans up the sport, then Quinton
Jackson and Muhammed
Lawal have a bitter feud they would like to sell you on
pay-per-view. Removing TRT is but a small step, albeit a positive
one. Now, at least the UFC is no longer advocating what basically
amounts to blatant steroid use.

It has been written many times in the past few days, but MMA needs
so much more: random out-of-competition testing, blood testing,
carbon isotope ratio testing. Without these things, cheaters will
continue to cheat. Only the most careless will get caught. Of
course, all of this costs money, money that athletic commissions
probably do not have. Banning TRT was a low-cost, feel-good
measure.

Until more steps are taken, last week’s landmark ruling amounts to
little more than a fancy bit of window dressing.